1. Untangling the biological contributions to soil stability in semiarid shrublands.
- Author
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Chaudry, V. Bala, Bowker, Matthew A., O'Dell, Thomas E., Grace, James B., Redman, Anrdrea E., Rillig, Matthias C., and Johnson, Nancy C.
- Subjects
SOIL stabilization ,SOIL crusting ,VESICULAR-arbuscular mycorrhizas ,PLANT communities ,BIOTIC communities ,PLANT-soil relationships ,SHRUBLANDS ,LANDSCAPES - Abstract
The article presents a landscape-scale field study which examines the biological soil crusts (BSCs) and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities of plants at 216 locations along a gradient of soil stability levels in Southern Utah. A multivariate modeling was used to examine the relative influences of plants, BSCs, and AM fungi on surface and subsurface stability in semiarid shrubland landscape. It was found that only plants and AM fungi contribute to subsurface stability while BSCs, plants, and AM fungi all contribute to surface stability.
- Published
- 2009
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